APC Back-UPS ES 700 review

APC's Back-UPS ES 700G Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is a clever device designed to protect to your PC and other devices from power faults, as well as helping to save electricity. It is basically a large battery with eight standard plug sockets. Four of the sockets can be powered by the battery during a power cut, giving you time to safely shut your computer down; the remaining four sockets provide surge protection.

With this model APC has also introduced power saving (be careful you don't buy the older 700 model). Three of the surge-protected sockets are slaves, controlled by a master battery-backed socket. When the device plugged into the master socket, such as your PC, draws power greater than the threshold, the slave sockets are turned on; when the master socket drops below the power threshold, such as when your PC is turned off, the slave sockets are turned off. The threshold is manually set, so you can tune the ES 700G to use any device as a master.

The ES 700G's main job remains protecting your PC and data, where it does a great job. Its USB output lets the provided PowerChute PC software monitor the UPS. When battery power is low PowerChute can hibernate your computer, protecting all open files and applications from data loss. It works very smoothly and gives you the option of shutting down between one and five minutes after battery power first comes on, or when there's between one and eight minutes of battery power left.

The time you pick massively depends on how long the 700VA (405W) battery will last. With our quad-core Core 2 Quad PC and 22in monitor plugged into the battery sockets PowerChute estimated that we had nine minutes of battery power, although if your PC uses the full 405W, you'll get just three minutes of power.

This may not sound like much in either case, but the Back-UPS ES 700G is less about letting you continue to work after a power cut, and more about giving you precious minutes to safely shut your PC down and save your files. With the added bonus of power saving and easy-to-use software, the Back-UPS ES 700G is the perfect way to safeguard your work and save electricity. It's a Best Buy.

Author: David Ludlow